Double Jeopardy: The Compounding Effects of Class and Race in School Mathematics

Gendered socialization with an embodied agent: Creating a social and affable mathematics learning environment for middle-grade females.

“…The students acknowledged that their teachers were overburdened with teaching big class. Still, their feelings of disconnection were a challenge to their engagement and success in school mathematics (Lim, 2008). The features that they listed as supportive of their learning during the lessons were similar to the characteristics of culturally relevant pedagogy (Gay, 2000).…”

A Framework for Problem-Based Learning: Teaching Mathematics with a Relational Problem-Based Pedagogy

“…This poses problems for holding interest and maintaining positive attitudes for many young women, specifically young women of color. Lim (2008b) found that in general adolescent girls of color struggle with accepted norms in traditional mathematics classrooms to which their cultural and learning communication behavior norms do not conform. These struggles may even go as far as purposefully repressing natural behaviors such as excited discussion and emotional relationships in order to fit the norms in these classrooms.…”

“…Taking a lesson from standpoint theory, researchers became wary that for too long they had been generalizing about the issues surrounding gender equity in mathematics, making assumptions about all types of girls by looking through too unfocused a lens. Looking through the filter of culturally relevant and relational pedagogies, what seems clear is that most mathematics classes in the United States even today are still "fundamentally grounded in separate, procedural, individual and competitive work" that is often opposing young women's cultural and social inclinations (Lim, 2008b). Communication characteristics such as free verbal expression and talking aloud are often considered disruptive behavior in a typical mathematics classroom.…”

“…Like many African American young women from urban culture, Alanna considers herself very loud and outspoken, and she may see her cultural and social personality in conflict with what is acceptable in the traditional mathematics classroom. Lim (2008b) said this of the internal conflict that young African American students grapple with in a traditional mathematics classroom: "Black students' communication style (e.g., free verbal expression and talking aloud) and learning preference (e.g., holistic, relational, and field-dependent) were rarely respected in the classroom space; rather they were considered disruptive behaviors or, at best, an attitude non-conducive to mathematics learning" (p. 92).…”

“…Research began to focus less on females as a broad category of mathematics learners and more on the differences between groups of females-African American, Hispanic, or white girls' attitudes toward learning mathematics, the mathematics classroom, or the subject of mathematics (Hoang, 2008;Lim, 2008aLim, , 2008b. Feminist standpoint theory, which is rooted in the concept that all perspectives, and thus knowledge, are situated in the individual's personal life experience standpoint, informs research methods so that investigators place their participants at the center of the research process and consider the unique perspectives from which they come.…”